MusicTech review: Live 6 lacks audio quality!!

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:14 pm

This is how I keep Live sounding decent. Midi and soft-synths stay that way. I try not to record them. I don't use live's audio plugins unless it has the character that I can't get any other way (ie, flangerphasersaturatedcheesesandwitch) No eq's or compressor plugins. They don't sound very good to me at all. Commit to a tempo early on. If I don't like the warp sound (and I usually don't, even in complex mode) on important samples, I use an offline program like speed on the original audio. At the mix stage, this is all in PT and its 48bit dbl precision plugs. Now I know this is not a dj way to go, but if your composing music masters, it sounds pretty good.

I would love to see Live7 with an offline superduper warp plug and a SuperComplex mode. A choice to move some of this new cpu power at warp and plugin fidelity would be a good step.

eyeknow · Post by **eyeknow** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:26 pm

remember, daws are all the same since it's digital 1's and 0's......

Just like cables/connectors........there are no differences in them right?

If someone says "wow, listen to the difference between these" to a deaf person ( or a ......dumb person.......), the deaf person wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:44 pm

No, that's not right. Every daw sounds different. You cannot discount the sound of operating the daw. The processing process and operational flow is the sound. Forget fidelity tests. Hell, even ram and cpu power have a huge influence on sound. Consider this; Even different live6 setups can sound better than other live6 setups, right?

Here's the real and only test to consider. Simply mix the same song in different daws. The mix that sounds best came from the best daw.

I mix for a living and there is no way I would get the same mix sound from each popular daw. Limits and freedom have a sound.

mercyplease · Post by **mercyplease** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:50 pm

knotkranky wrote:
I mix for a living and there is no way I would get the same mix sound from each popular daw. Limits and freedom have a sound.

Your in the 3% of the elite music people if you mix for a living. Its the best job in the industry
I would love to hear some of your mixes can you point me in the right direction.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:50 pm

Well, we can get touchy feely if you want, but I'm trying to find hard evidence one way or the other.

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:01 pm

eyeknow wrote:remember, daws are all the same since it's digital 1's and 0's......

Just like cables/connectors........there are no differences in them right?

If someone says "wow, listen to the difference between these" to a deaf person ( or a ......dumb person.......), the deaf person wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two

Not true. Different daws implement different algorythms to make calculations. Think of it as if it was a recipe. You can read it out of a book, and *theoretically* every chef that prepaired the meal would get the same dish, right? Nope. Every chef would get a different taste of the same recipe, because of the different approaches to cooking, the different trade offs that were taken into account, etc. It's exactly the same when it comes to digital signal processing. For instance, Live developers probably err on the side of cpu optimization, since their app should work ok for live performance, but that sometimes compromises sound quality. Give and take, you know?

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:06 pm

I dunno mercy, you play rough. Would I regret the invitation? I'll tell ya though, it can be a lonely gig and checks bounce often. I miss working at studios and P.O's

Needless to say Tarekith, there is no hard evidence. I use PT HD3 and "A" list plugs because nothing else can touch it. Good audio is simply finding 1% or 2% better quality at every stage since it's could translate into 50% better at the end of your project.

frisbeedisk · Post by **frisbeedisk** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:09 pm

From using MPC's and sx for years, then turning to Live to make music, i found that live gave me something close to the mpc sound, sx was just to crisp and live gave it a kindda compressed sound....i dunno maybe its just me and my ears playing tricks

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:16 pm

No, not at all. A Les Paul through a marshall, set to 11 or a Les paul through a DI. Which? The one you like is the correct choice.

Seems you prefer a bit reduced sort of sound and why not?

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:23 pm

Ok, I redid my test comparing the warping modes with audio at it's original tempo. Here's the scenario:

I used a 30 second clip of a 24bit/96kHz mixdown (wav file) of one of my newer songs as the source audio. I chose a song that I knew had a pretty spread of information across the audible spectrum. This clip was imported into a brand new Live 6 project, with warping turned off initially. I set the tempo of the Live 6 project to be exactly that of my original song (130 BPM).

I then rendered the unwarped file in Live 6 to a 24bit/44.1 wav file, this was my baseline. Next I activated each of the warp modes with their default settings, and rendered the clip again as a new 24/44.1 wav file for each warp type. All settings in Live were at their default, and I was rendering the master out channel Live.

Next, I imported all of the wav files into SX onto their own tracks, all lined up at exactly the same start position. The unwarped file I reversed the polarity of, and I muted all the other tracks. One at a time, I unmuted the tracks contained the warped files, and played them back with at the same time as the polarity reversed unwarped. I not only listened to make sure there was total cancellation, but also used the EAS Inspector XL Level Meter and Spectrum Analyser plug ins to confirm that there was no audio playing back outside of the range of my hearing. Both plug ins were set to measure down to -144dBFS, the lowest bit resolution of a 24bit file.

The results:

- The warp modes Beats, Texture, and Repitch resulted in 100% cancellation, comfirmed by my meters.

- The warp modes Tones and Complex did not cancel, with Tones being the worse of the two (the most audio information was audible where total silence should occur).

I should note that playing back the unwarped, polarity reversed audio file and the Complex file togather gave me one of the coolest flangering/phasing sounds I've ever heard. I'll definitely be using this in a song in the future as an effect

Anyway, so it looks like certain warp modes DO in fact impact the audio, even when the audio is left at the same tempo it was recorded. This is not a bash at Ableton, far from it. In fact it shows that you can probably use the other warp modes if you want to retain Clip Envelopes and the like without negatively affecting the audio quality.

And as always, if you spot a flaw in my testing, let me know and I'll try and correct it.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:31 pm

Needless to say Tarekith, there is no hard evidence.

>>>That's what I'm trying to generate, hard evidence so we can either stop these claims that Ableton is inferior, or at elast know what the differences are in a quantative manner. <<<

I use PT HD3 and "A" list plugs because nothing else can touch it. Good audio is simply finding 1% or 2% better quality at every stage since it's could translate into 50% better at the end of your project.

>>>Dude, you're preaching to the choir.

I do mixdowns and pre-mastering on the side as well (it's admittedly not my day job unfortunately), and agree 100% that little bits here and there (no pum intended) add up at the end. <<<

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:35 pm

You're the first cat to do it right that i've seen. I don't like render though. I think a realtime resample track is the way to go. Render has a weird sound to me.

It's strange that beat, texture and repitch resulted in no artifacts. Warp was on with a tempo shift? Try it again with a 30 bpm tempo shift.

10-4 on the last. Cheers

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:51 pm

rolfski wrote:I just picked up the October issue of MusicTech magazine, curious of course how Live 6 got reviewed. They gave it a 8/10, their main gripes being the limited editing functions and audio quality still behind compared to the major DAWs:

"Although the relative audio quality of the various sequencers is a controversial subject, in our experiences mixes made in Live can suffer a bit in overall crispness and clarity; this difference can be heard if the individual audio tracks are exported one at a time and then imported into another sequencer for mixing."

The quote from MTM actually reveals all:

Anyone who has properly read the Ableton press review, who has tried out the software properly, and undertaken to provide a professional review would never have said - read it again! - :

MTM wrote:...if audio tracks are exported one at a time ...

Nearly anyone here can tell you that one of the great new features in Live 6 is the ability to export individual tracks in one go, and not "one at a time".

The MTM guy simply hasn't done a proper professional review. End of.

That said, the review was went to print before the product was even released. Given the lead time that magazine reviews require (I've written a couple myself

) it must have been based on - at best - beta versions 1 - 4, and NOT the commercially availble Live 6. Very shoddy indeed

Lastly, remember that this is the magazine who wrote in their getting started with Live 5 tutorial that it is a pity Live does not support VST instruments!!

Shocking stuff. Why does anyone buy it?

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:56 pm

No no, there was no tempo shift at all, that was the whole point. Someone stated above that warping didn't affect the audio if you kept it at the same tempo the file was recorded at.

Changing the tempo 30 BPM will obviously have a drastic affect regardless of the warp mode, and then I have nothing to compare it to (no baseline, as it's an unwarped audio file.)

Just for fun, I compared this same audio file resampled and rendered, to see if there was a difference. I compared the unwarped file that was rendered, with one that I resampled to another track (original was unwarped). I also did the same with the files in Complex mode.

Surprisingly, there WAS a difference when doing the polarity test. It wasn't audible, but I was seeing the IXL meters showing signal about at about -86dBFS for both Comlex mode and unwarped. Hmm, no idea what could be causing this though, I'll have to think about it. Unless maybe Robert will chime in with some ideas?

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:59 pm

Well, obviously MusicTech sucks more dick than the DJs at a Miami music conference.

MusicTech review: Live 6 lacks audio quality!!

Re: MusicTech review: Live 6 lacks audio quality!!